Hello! My name is Lars Schwarz (aka Bitrocker)

I'm a Freelance Web Developer from Oldenburg, Germany

Why don’t you validate?

I assume most of you guys are aware there’s a service called “Markup Validation Service”. If you develop Websites it’s a good idea you validate them before publishing to make sure the conform the Specifications that exit for HTML/XHTML or even CSS.

If you wonder what validation is all about you might want to check the W3C Page on “Validation Basics”.

Because i do this for all HTML/XTHML/CSS Projects i do, i was curious if others do to or to be more specific, if major Sites do. So i did some quick checks (just the Markups, not the CSS):

1. Apple.com (Doctype HTML 4.01 Transitional)

1 Error, no warnings

2. Amazon.com (Doctype HTML 4.01 Transitional)

1601 Errors, 150 warnings

3. Dell.com (Doctype HTML 4.0 Transitional (WTF?!))

297 Errors, 46 warnings

4. Digg.com (Doctype XHTML 1.0 Transitional)

16 Errors, 10 warnings

5. Ebay.com (Doctype HTML 4.01 Transitional)

230 Errors

6. Facebook.com (XHTML 1.0 Strict)

34 Errors, 6 warnings

7. Flickr.com (Doctype HTML 4.01 Strict)

37 Errors, 9 warnings

8. Google.com (Doctype HTML 4.01 Transitional)

72 Errors, 11 warnings

9. Microsoft.com (Doctype XHTML 1.0 Transitional)

177 Errors, 37 warnings

10. Mozilla.org (Doctype HTML 4.01 Strict)

passed! (1 warning)

11. Myspace.com (Doctype XHTML 1.0 Transitional)

57 Errors, 23 warnings

12. Paypal.com (Doctype HTML 4.01 Transitional)

3 Errors, 1 warnings

13. Youtube.com (Doctype HTML 4.01 Transitional)

107 Errors, 14 warnings

14. Wikipedia.org (Doctype XHTML 1.0 Strict)

passed!

15. WordPress.org (Doctype XHTML 1.0 Transitional)

passed!

16. Yahoo.com (Doctype HTML 4.01 Transitional)

235 Errors, 138 warnings

Yes, lot’s of Sites do validate, but obviously not much of the Major ones. Sites that do validate for example: Microformats.org, Zeldman.com and others.

Mostly a CMS or even better the Content maintained by Users produces a lot of Errors that haven’t been there when the Site was launched. Other Errors might be because of Scripts used for Adverts or additional Features.

Next-Generation Blogging

I was trying out “Habari” for some weeks, but switched back to WordPress now. The so called “next-generation Blogging” was easy to install, easy to manage and simply worked, but…

… why stick to HTML 4.01 which is a nearly 10 Year old specification???

So, here’s good old Wordpres back in action.

2 Comments

Rick Cockrum on September 1st, 2008

The initial developers of Habari had a lot of discussion about whether to use HTML or XHTML in the generated markup. Some of the highlights are at http://wiki.habariproject.org/en/XHTML_vs_HTML .
admin on September 1st, 2008

Good Points. Habari itself just worked fine for me, but somehow i had that strange feeling that it’s a bit too old skool to stick to html 4.01. Let’s wait for the next Release and maybe i’ll switch back